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It is so good to be able to rest a moment in a fresh afternoon of mid August. I am sitting in our new Shipping Department (we expend our offices of another thousand square feet) and just below our windows there is a park. Children are playing in the swing and there is a baseball field a little further. Some birds are singing in the trees. It is so quiet.
The summer was so hot and humid this year that it was hard to work. The new office is a lot cooler than the old one. I cannot imagine how we would have survived this heat in our small, crowded previous office. People told me that it was a nice summer despite the heat. I was so busy that I hardly noticed. I even missed the International Jazz Festival. Darn. But I don't care. I am glad of what we accomplished this summer.
Both magazines, PROTOCULTURE ADDICTS and MECHA PRESS, have been released regularly and mostly on time. Both are now thicker: fifty-two pages! I am beginning to be quite satisfied with the content and the look of PA. Still, it is not perfect, and that is why we never quit improving. The readers seems also satisfied. We are receiving many letters of encouragement. We are also receiving more and more contribution from outsiders. The improved visibility is bringing us more advertisers, more distributors, and, ultimately, a better circulation. Thanks to all contributors and readers who help us make of PA your favorite Anime and Manga Magazine.
We were even busier in the gaming field. We have slowed down our production of Cyberpunk (6 books up to now this year) and Mekton (1 books) but only to prepare more new projects. We have created our own roleplaying/table-top system: Silhouette. Check it out, you will like it. Our first game using this system will be HEAVY GEAR, a futuristic Viet Nam-like setting, inspired by anime, where mecha are an essential part of survival. There will be a lot of follow-up in that series: we have more than twenty books scheduled in the next two years. We are also working on at least two other games, plus the Anime Game series that is also using the Silhouette system. We will first released PROJECT A-KO RPG this fall and already have other licenses in negociation. Finally, we just released a mecha fight card game: HEAVY GEAR FIGHTER. It is part of the HEAVY GEAR setting but can be played separately. It is fun, it is nice, and it made a lot of impression at GenCon (the big gaming convention). This card game will have a lot of supplement too, and several similar card games are already planned: martial art fighting (VIDEO FIGHTER), spaceship combat, etc. A busy year.
This issue offers you a spotlight on GinRei and a feature on GHOST SWEEPER MIKAMI. There is also lots of news (plenty of details on this fall releases), of reviews, and the first article in a series on the Japanese language. I hope you will enjoy it. For me, it is a special issue: number thirty already... The time is running so fast... which remind me that I cannot rest too long since I must finish this issue, send it to the printer, prepare some shipping -- all this before leaving for Winnipeg to attend the WorldCon.
Ja ne!
Claude J. Pelletier